CHALO DILLI!

How corrupt this world is! That the foremost of our national leaders, the one that made us free of the British yoke, should lie in obscurity through the heinous hand of treachery of his Congress colleagues is a perfidy that passes all parallels. And that too in a country that prides itself in spiritual values, that blazons at international meets the words of the Buddha and holds ‘Satyameva jayate’ (Truth alone triumphs) as its guiding principle, a nation that supposedly built its freedom movement on Satyagraha (Truth force / Enthusiasm for truth) but whose first footsteps into political maturity were blighted by this barbarous act of treason by its leading lights against its most lustrous leader, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, all these set one thinking as to the validity of these high-sounding theorems on morality and ethics in the active life of our nation’s founding fathers. Thoughts galore stream in but resolution there is none for the nation’s destiny lies buried beneath heaps of historical suppressions and distortions the like of which the world has not witnessed anywhere this century.

70 years have rolled on since the day of his mysterious disappearance and, yet, the citizens of this land must go with a begging bowl to the governors of their fate, seeking the whereabouts of their beloved hero who throbs in their hearts like a pulsating dream that never breaks but weaves on fresh fabric in the absence of concrete evidence about his life’s story, evidence and information galore carefully kept out of bounds of the common man, so volatile must be their content. Such secrecy surrounding the Netaji Files legitimately raises doubts about the intentions of successive Congress Governments at the Centre which chose to suppress a plethora of information classifying them as top security material unfit to be divulged to the nation. Even the State Government of West Bengal did scanty little till the present government in an unprecedented gesture disclosed all the 64 files on Netaji in its custody. One of the files, though, is missing and another, mutilated. Why all these years the Government  of India is sitting on these Netaji Files remains a mystery, to speak in polite terms, but it is anybody’s guess who committed such a heinous crime and why so. By whose orders were destroyed two very crucial files in the third decade of Congress rule is also known to all. These are the leaders who were supposedly the harbingers of a new age and would take us to the millennium, but blighting the career of the brightest of them all, they are now facing the judgement of a people long betrayed, and while their party may still vociferously defend their treasonous actions, covering them up with festering flowers, the mandate of the people will spare nor prince nor pauper and history will avenge misdeeds in the fullness of time. Attempts to obliterate the very memory of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will permanently etch him in the consciousness of his people and history written afresh will assign him and his I.N.A. their due place as the clinching condition for the capitulation of British colonialism in India and elsewhere. No wonder he was Enemy Number One of the Allied Forces during World War II for while motivated, and mischievously so, politicians might dub him fascist falsely, the Anglo-American political hawks knew his power and his hold over the imagination of the masses in India and, therefore, could not rest in peace till they had seen his end, but the Divine had another dispensation unfolding, so it seems.

Now that the hour of reckoning has come, how far are we going to engage ourselves in pressing for the forthwith declassification of all Netaji Files? Is it a momentary sensationalism that is working up the masses to a heightened animation or is it something more stable and secure in content that may be depended upon to carry on the struggle for the resurrection of Netaji from the Secret Files? These are pertinent questions and need soul-searching for adequate answers. Else, history will dubiously repeat itself and the case will be shelved indefinitely as in the past. Decades have rolled on in this way and this time we must not let the same recur. A massive sustained campaign needs committed people by the thousands who will devote their all to the Cause of the resurrection of their hero and so may the masses be moved on a grand scale for long to set the seal of victory eventually on the movement. Instead of frenzied fury and frothy emotionalism let a concerted effort emerge to learn about the issues involved in the case and let an integrated movement avert the danger of dissipation of energy. ‘The enemy has already drawn the sword. He must, therefore, be fought with the sword.’ These words are chilling in their connotation in independent India when the Government sits pretty on the Netaji Files and the masses move the conscience of the leaders to disclose them.

At this critical hour we have to unite our forces for the tide is on and we must make fullest use of it. We have confidence in our Prime Minister and in his Government that they will fulfil their pledge to the nation and to the Bose family to declassify the Netaji Files for it was they who in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s tenure had set up the Justice Mukherjee Commission to investigate the Netaji Disappearance Case, a Commission whose Report was subsequently tabled and unceremoniously dismissed in Parliament as untenable by the then U.P.A. Government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh without citing sufficient reason for such summary dismissal. The present government is bold and open and has nothing to lose politically as well in bringing about the disclosure of the Netaji Files. Our honoured Prime Minister may win his place in history should he exhibit character enough to forge ahead and reinstate Netaji and the I.N.A. to their rightful place in Indian and World History by ordering the complete declassification of all Netaji Files held in India and, thence, diplomatically creating the base for such declassification of all Foreign Files on Netaji as well. The nation needs to know what happened to their Leader, their Liberator in the aftermath of the Second World War. The Secret Files on Netaji hold the answers to these questions for sure and merit their freedom from life-long captivity. The conscience of the nation has again been struck by the chord called Netaji and now there will be no looking back. Onward then to Declassification! Chalo Dilli!

 

The demands that ought to be made to the Centre are as follows:

1. Declassify all Netaji Files lying with the Central Government and its Intelligence Agencies.

2. Reopen the Justice Manoj Mukherjee Commission Report before Parliament for due deliberations on it.

3. Appeal to all foreign governments like those of Russia, UK, USA, Japan, Germany, Italy, China, Chinese Taipei, Vietnam and Myanmar for declassification of the Bose Files held classified there.

Friends, raise your voice now that the curtain rises on this secret phase of Indian history and with it ends all speculation that has plagued this country for seven decades. May the blood of the martyrs of the I.N.A. find fulfilment in the sunshine of truth streaming forth through the pages and the letters of these secret documents even as the heroes had once streamed into India through the jungles of Burma and hoisted the tricolour on Indian soil, and may the hallowed leader of this, the final onslaught on British imperialism that uprooted the Raj and freed our Motherland, our beloved Netaji, stand transfigured in the revelations thereof, a patriot nonpareil, a soldier to the very soul, a saint in a warrior’s garb, the hope and joy of an entire nation, the veritable Spirit of India! Jai Hind!